Hey guys,

swapping a built b20v into my crv here in about a week and im needing help deciding on which local shop i should have tune it.

i DD this car so it needs to be reliable and get decent MPG but i still want it to make good power.


TUNER 1: this guy knows his **** and is WELL KNOWN locally for tuning for driveability and decent power. i have not heard of anyone blowing up their car after him tuning it. he tunes conservatively i've been told by MANY people.

TUNER 2: this guy can squeeze every last drop of performance out of anything it seems. tunes less conservative than tuner 1 thus has an occasional "you caused my motor to blow up" happen BUT i do know those people have a rep for going past redline daily and driving the **** out of their cars so i dont take that as a discredit.

tuner 1 states "$250-$350 depending on difficulty of tune"
tuner 2 states "$250 flat"

both tuners are WELL knowledge in honda and both have built 9 second turbo cars and battle it out on the strip so i see them as equal in my mind.

there is a 3rd tuner but he has tuning experience in a variety of different cars, everything from muscle cars to awd turbo madness. not sure on his pricing though.


any thoughts?

 

I hate the concept of "that guy is conservative" & "this guy will make you the most power".

People that follow that concept have no idea of what they are talking about.
You can't "squeeze" power out of a setup. The engine/fuel combo will only take so much ignition timing before "squeezing" turns into detonation/knock.

I am assuming these prices are street tunes?
Call each tuner, ask them questions.
Choose which ever makes you feel best about the process.

 

both dyno tunes and both are shops.

one favors running a tad rich and the other tunes a good bit leaner.

i've not had a honda tuned before so thats why im asking questions hoping to get guidance from people who've gotten many honda's tuned.

 

$250 for a dyno tune?
I am glad I am not located where you are.

Talk to both tuners, ask them questions about their process of tuning & advice on your setup.
Choose which ever one seems like they will provide the best customer service.

 

is that high or low?

thanks for your advice.

 

Well you said your vehicle is going to be a DD. So you know one tuner is Conservative. Him tuning your car will prob have a lasting relationship. If the other guy is squeezing every little bit of power, by your terminology, then he will run your setup as lean as possible to make the highest dyno #'s as possible. Lean is mean, until there is a slight hickup.

 

good point.

im wondering if i can get the conservative to be a little more aggressive or the other to be a tad less aggressive.

neither of them really like to explain or talk about stuff. they both say "too many punk kids come in here asking 1000s of questions and never buy anything".

im no kid and i have money so im kind of stuck making the decision based on each tuners street rep.

the conservative tuner is hard to get ahold of and is usually never at the shop but the aggressive tuner is open 7 days a week 8am-6pm and is never more than 5mins away from the shop. so based on what you guys are telling me, Tuner 2 is looking to be better choice because of better customer service in the long run...if i can just get him to tune a tad more conservative

 

Its not really that hard of a decision..

as stated as above, you can only add so much timing and take out so much fuel to where its on the point of blowing up, and it may not happen that day or that week or that month..

but trust me, I run my wideband in my car daily, and I do notice when using different gas stations that my afr is sometimes different not kidding so you can imagine if the car is tuned lean and you get a bad tank of gas and it runs leaner its not gonna be good with all that timing added to squeeze 2 hp...

I'm a tuner as well and I tune with Neptune and I like to be on the conservative side, on my personal car I've tuned it conservative, and I've tuned it pushing it to the max, and honestly 3-4 whp isn't worth it to me to put all that extra stress on my engine

I honestly haven't really noticed much of a power gain by running an all motor car lean maybe on a force induction car, but i tune force induction cars to 11.8 afr...


you could do more mods to gain that 3-4 whp lol and have a happy safe engine

I hope your happy with whoever you take it to happy tuning

 

In my honest opinion, if a tuner is going to come out and say "too many punk kids asking too many questions" then i would be aware, when I tune peoples cars, I have no problem talking to them about what I am doing to their car in my eyes, its the customers right to know....

but trust me we have people come by the shop and ask about tuning and ask about turbo kits and custom stuff, and never buy anything, but thats no reason to degrade someone by calling them a punk lol not everybody has a big wallet to spend on their car, but sometimes people like to get pricing so they know how much they need to save up to accomplish their goals for their cars

If a tuner is hard to get ahold of, I would not go through him at all... almost every single car I tune, I give the customer my cell phone in case they have any issues at all I like having great customer feedback and customer service